Pigs de Resistance

You can have my Danish pastry when you pry it from my sticky, grubby fingers.

Monday, June 05, 2006

The Alliance is Growing!

Cad, this is excellent news! SnoopyTheGoon stopped by with an offer we couldn't refuse. Clearly, anyone involved with comics is closely associated with the Zionist Conspiracy (TM).

Drat it all, Cad! Are we pigs or apes? As Christians we had best be pigs or we will have to change the name of the blog and I don't know how to do that. Curses upon this Interwebs! We shall have to consult He Who Must Not Be Drawn (Propellor Beanie Upon Him)

More Cartoon Mayhem

Members of Iran’s Azeri minority hurled stones in violent protests on Monday, enraged by a newspaper cartoon they said insulted them, a semi-official news agency and a witness quoted by Reuters said. The ILNA labor news agency said thousands protested in the northwestern city of Tabriz and police used teargas to try to disperse the crowd. The exact number of demonstrators could not be confirmed.

The cartoon, which appeared in Friday’s edition of the official Iran newspaper, showed a boy repeating the Persian word for cockroach in different ways, while a cockroach in front of the boy asked “What?” in Azeri.

The Azeris of northwestern Iran speak a language related to Turkish. Although Azeris have many luminaries among Iran’s commercial elite, Iran’s majority Persians mock them as stupid in their jokes.

Today's geography lesson has been brought to you by Marvin the Martian.

Sunday, May 21, 2006

Cure for Insomnia

We all know that Al Gore didn't really invent the internet. Hey, wake up! Go get some coffee and continue reading.

The charismatic 45th Vice President of the United States may be arrogant, pedantic and smarmy, but surely even he couldn't think that the hoi-polloi would buy a whopper this big. I didn't know what he actually said, so I used his invention to find out:

During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system.

Back in 1999, Gore was blathering to Wolf Blitzer on CNN about his accomplishments through the years.

Snopes pointed out that we commonly refer to the interstate highway system as President Eisenhower's creation.

If President Eisenhower had said in the mid-1960s that he..."created" the Interstate Highway System, we would not have seen dozens and dozens of editorials lampooning him for claiming he "invented" the concept of highways or implying that he personally went out and dug ditches across the country to help build the roadway. Everyone would have understood that Ike meant he was a driving force behind the legislation that created the highway system...

Fair enough. Even Vint Cerf ackowledges a level of contribution. The real reason that Gore got all the editorial abuse is because he is an arrogant blowhard. He comes across as smug and superior.

Paul Harvey still hasn't found a replacement, but I had to know the exact quote.

Vive la resistance!

Celluloid Heroes Never Die

Those Danish cartoons just won't go away. If I were like the tree killing media in the United States I would claim I were keeping a respectful distance, waiting for the fevered brows to cool, but this little piggy doesn't go to that market. This little piggy stayed home.

It is time to ask the world wide audience of readers:

Why does this offend you?

This cartoon contains no prophet, nor anything of a prophetical nature. In fact, the cartoon openly mocks the newspaper publishing it. So do tell, gentle reader, what is it about this student named Mohammed that ruffles your feathers?

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Go Back On The 'Net

What? You didn't read the old one?Click if you need to catch up.I posted a link to the April message earlier and I have since updated it when it got moved to Dan's archive.

The Time Traveler appeared suddenly in my study on New Year’s Eve, 2004. He was a stolid, grizzled man in a gray tunic and looked to be in his late-sixties or older. He also appeared to be the veteran of wars or of some terrible accident since he had livid scars on his face and neck and hands, some even visible in his scalp beneath a fuzz of gray hair cropped short in a military cut. One eye was covered by a black eyepatch. Before I could finish dialing 911 he announced in a husky voice that he was a Time Traveler come back to talk to me about the future.

The April message will grab you by the nethers. The May/June message is an analysis of the previous one. Like a good chess game, the post-mortem is quite a bit longer, but worth the time of the interested party.

Monday, May 15, 2006

First They Came For The Cartoonists

Belgian journalists, lawyers and politicians (including Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt), say that I am responsible for creating the atmosphere of hatred that led to the massacre. Some people even demand that I be prosecuted.

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Patriot's Day

The British are coming!

Here in the People's Republic of Massachusetts we observe Patriot's Day in honor of the start of the Revolutionary. Maine and Wisconsin are the only other states to observe this very Yankee holiday. Like all good Americans, we moved observance to the third Monday in April to make a three day weekend.

I stopped by the Bedford Public Library to see the original Bedford Flag. The exact age is unknown, but it is well over 250 years old. I also saw the letter giving John Page his commission in the colonial militia. It was a form used by the governor's office with blank space for Name & Rank ___, Unit & Commanding Officer ___ On This Day ___________ of 173__.

An army marched on its paperwork, even back then.

Photography of the preserved original is prohibited so I got a shot of the town flag in front of Town Hall.

From there it was a just a few miles to the Old North Bridge battlefield.

It was at the Old North Bridge that the colonials turned back the British Army. The first shots were fired at Lexington, but we got beaten soundly.

Several British companies were in the town of Concord burning stores of gunpowder while three companies held this bridge.

After getting pushed back over the bridge, the British were shadowed all the way back to Charlestown, suffering casualties along the route.

These were men willing sacrifice their lives for their freedom at a time when their government held them in low regard.

Looking For Humor in the Muslim World

Albert Brooks: Culture Warrior

Funnyman Albert Brooks plays a comedian sent by the U.S. State Department to India and Pakistan to find out exactly what makes Muslims laugh -- all with an eye toward helping everyone to get along better in the post-Sept. 11 world. Directed and written by Brooks, this smart, thoughtful and, yes, funny film essentially bypasses religion, instead focusing on where people find humor, regardless of culture or beliefs.

Mrs. fluffy (one of three humans to read this blog) and I rent movies through NetFlix. I'm sure you are familiar with the process. I decided to add this particular movie, Looking For Humor in the Muslim World, to our queue. I searched, found the title, then encountered "Save", rather than "Add".

Q:Why do some titles have a Save button instead of an Add button?

A:For titles that haven't been released on DVD yet or for which the release date is unknown, we offer the option to save them in the "Saved" section of your Queue.

My search for humor in the Muslim world was fruitless. I hear that is a common experience.

Saturday, April 15, 2006

Opium is Religion of the Communists

One of the great things about the web is taking an interesting wrong turn. If one desires to learn about RSS, what better place than RSS dot Org?

If you think violence was the only thing Naxalites are known for, visit Jharkhand to see "farmers" in comrades. Not wheat or rice, they cultivate opium.

Naxalites are Indian communists. Jharkhand is a state in eastern India, recently formed in 2000.

The Naxalite-infested areas of Jharkhand are underdeveloped. Whatever the government's claim might be, the fact remains that there are no roads, no bridges and no schools in the interior parts of the state.

Usually, the Naxalites demand from a contractor 30 per cent of the total amount sanctioned to him by the government for construction of roads, dams, buildings and bridges.

These Naxalites learn fast. All you have to do is obtain some firearms and proclaim yourselves as 'liberators'.

This had been the major source of income for the rebels ever since Jharkhand was carved out of Bihar in 2000 and there was a boom in the construction industry. Besides, the contractors also have to "please" government officials for granting them the contract.

With the construction business fast turning out to be non- profitable, the contractors recently started looking for other options, forcing the Naxalites to think of something more than just charging levy. In fact, there were instances when the contractors refused to take up work in Naxalite-infested areas as they had to cough up a major part of their income for nothing.

Imagine that, they over-taxed the contractors, who packed up and went away. In these here parts there is an old story about killing the goose that laid the golden egg.

But the involvement of Naxalites in opium farming was proved when a Chatra-based journalist with a vernacular daily, who had come out with a story on opium farming in his newspaper, had to appear in a kangaroo court (jan adalat) of the Maoists to ask for forgiveness. This journalist had to assure the Maoists that he would never (and never) come out with a report on opium farming.

These Naxalites sound an awful lot like Massachusetts Democrats. Do they need reinforcements? We could find some 'volunteers' on Beacon Hill. Exotic vacation anyone?